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Who Do You Think You Are? Rob Lowe Episode Review

The 9th episode of Season 3 of Who Do You Think You Are? with actor Rob Lowe as the main focus appeared this evening on NBC. Many of your genealogy blogging colleagues watched this episode and are writing and posting their thoughts.

Here is what fellow genealogists and family historians with their own blogs are saying about WDYTYA:

About Thomas MacEntee

What happens when a “tech guy” with a love for history gets laid off during The Great Recession of 2008? You get Thomas MacEntee, a genealogy professional who’s also a blogger, educator, author, social media connector, online community builder and more.
Thomas was laid off after a 25-year career in the information technology field, so he started his own genealogy-related business called High Definition Genealogy. He also created an online community of over 3,000 family history bloggers known as GeneaBloggers. His most recent endeavor, Hack Genealogy, is an attempt to “re-purpose today’s technology for tomorrow’s genealogy.”
Thomas describes himself as a lifelong learner with a background in a multitude of topics who has finally figured out what he does best: teach, inspire, instigate, and serve as a curator and go-to-guy for concept nurturing and inspiration. Thomas is a big believer in success, and that we all succeed when we help each other find success.

3 thoughts on “Who Do You Think You Are? Rob Lowe Episode Review”

The dramatic angle for me was how Rob Lowe slowly built for himself a vision of his Hessian ancestor as being only human, not the ruthless mercenary of legend. His choice to stay in America became his redeeming quality. He took a chance on freedom, because his opportunities back in Germany were slim to none. And maybe this show will increase applications to the DAR! Our family might even get around to applying. : )

I think Rob Lowe went into this just thinking it would be cool to have a patriot for an ancestor. Instead he learned about the sacrifices for and rewards of freedom. As most of us have found, our ancestors are never what you expect. They are so much more.

I was intrigued by this episode because I have a Hessian ancestor. I haven’t devoted any time to German research so it was very interesting to see how much was uncovered in this episode in Germany. I have spent most of my research on info in the US but this really made want to find out how far I could go in Germany.